


This Year's For Me and You

by quantumhearts



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Tree, Fluff, M/M, Vancouver Canucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 11:16:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13098948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumhearts/pseuds/quantumhearts
Summary: Bo has a broken ankle, so Brock helps him put up his Christmas tree.





	This Year's For Me and You

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. This is a sequel/companion piece to a longer Bo/Brock story I wrote that takes place during the Nucks’ recent East Coast road trip, but that one isn’t finished yet, so for now you get this. Stay tuned! 
> 
> 2\. [These two](https://imgur.com/a/p8ENS). 
> 
> 3\. But also just [him](https://imgur.com/a/vJSn5).
> 
> 4\. Title is from "Fairytale of New York" by the Pogues, which is the greatest Christmas song of all time.

_» Can you come over? I need help._

 

The puncuation was a little bit frightening to Brock. Bo didn’t usually put periods in his texts. 

 

_» Yea of course, I’m on my way,_ he wrote back, and then threw on a coat and jogged down to his garage, worried. 

 

Bo answered the door with crutches and a walking boot. It was the first time they’d seen each other since he’d gone down on Tuesday night, and Brock’s heart broke a little bit, really just a visceral reaction, out of his control. He wanted to hug him or touch him or something but didn’t know at all what to do. 

 

“Oh, come on,” Bo said, clearly noticing the look on Brock’s face. “I’m all right. They shot me up pretty good this morning, so it doesn’t even hurt.”

 

“What’s wrong? You said you needed help. What can I do?”

 

“Well,” Bo started, hobbling into the living room. “I got this tree delivered.” He gestured towards a trussed-up fir tree that Brock hadn’t initially noticed leaning against a far wall in the airy, spacious living room. 

 

“And…?”

 

“I can’t really put it up on my own, now, with this,” Bo said, waving a crutch at the tree. 

 

“Wait a minute,” Brock said, narrowing his eyes. “You asked me over here to do manual labour?” 

 

“Oh, it’s hardly labour!” Bo said. “Anyway, we’re both overdue on getting into the spirit, don’t you think?”

 

“I guess…” Brock said, skeptical. “Okay. I’ll help you. Where’s your tree stand?” 

 

“Uh,” Bo said, looking a little sheepish. “I’ve never actually done Christmas on my own, you know, so I don’t… maybe I don’t have one?”

 

“Are you joking? What the hell, Bo?” 

 

Bo just flashed him a toothy, hangdog smile, one that made Brock melt, but in the most reluctant way.

 

Brock scoffed, grabbing his coat off the chair where he had initially tossed it panicked and concerned, and said, “I’ll be right back.”

 

He drove across the bridge to Canadian Tire, found a cast-iron tree stand, and then paid for it. The grandmotherly cashier didn’t appear to recognize him. 

 

“Is this your first Christmas away from home, son?” 

 

“Well —” he started. He _was_ heading home to Minnesota in a few weeks for the actual holiday. But it occurred to him that the experience of Christmas wasn’t limited to the day itself. He supposed that would make it his first Christmas in Vancouver. 

 

His and Bo’s first Christmas. The thought produced a little shiver of private joy. 

 

When he got back to Bo’s, there were more storage totes in the living room: lights and ornaments and garlands. And Bo had lit a couple of scented candles, which Brock found enormously endearing. The gas fireplace was on, too. He supposed all of this meant he was here for the duration. 

 

“Can I get you anything?” Bo asked him, as he unboxed the tree stand. 

 

“No, that’s all right,” Brock said, smiling at Bo in spite of his feigned irritation. “Sit down, get off your feet — foot. You can tell me if I’ve put it up straight.” 

 

So Bo settled onto his sectional couch, looking all too comfortable, and Brock got to work. He pulled the netting off the tree and fluffed it up a little bit, and it was actually quite handsome. The scent of the needles sent him straight back to his childhood, in Minneapolis. Two states and a lake away from Bo’s own childhood home in Ontario. They couldn’t have had terribly different Christmases as kids, in snowy places where hockey life was paramount. 

 

“What were your holidays like? Growing up? Did you have any traditions?” Brock said this through a cluster of fir boughs as he fiddled with the bolts in the stand. 

 

“Everyone has traditions, don’t they?” Bo said. “We had a lot of property, you know. It’s a rural area. If there’s snow on the ground, we’ll rip around on snowmobiles or ATVs, and there’s a great hill for sledding — so I always hoped for snow, you know. Open presents and then pack onto the snowmobiles with our krazy karpets and just go up and down the hill until it got dark.” 

 

“That sounds like so much fun. I wish we’d had land growing up. I always kind of fantasized about a Christmas like that.” 

 

“Well maybe sometime — ” Bo started, but then stopped himself, and began laughing. 

 

“What??”

 

“You’re fucking _covered_ in pine needles. Come here.” 

 

Brock walked back over to him, and crouched down, and then let Bo brush the needles off his shoulders and his hair. (He never let anybody touch his hair, except for Bo, and he wondered if Bo was cognizant of that.)

 

“You’re gonna have to vacuum this up later,” Brock remarked, noticing all of the debris scattered on Bo’s living room rug. 

 

“You mean _you’re_ gonna have to vacuum,” Bo corrected. “Unless you want me to break my other ankle.” 

 

Brock just shook his head. “Whatever, you fuck. Does it look straight?”

 

They both admired the tree. It had to be pushing eight feet. 

 

“Yeah, I think we’re good. Okay, lights next?” 

 

“This part’s the biggest pain in the ass,” Brock said, unpacking the tote marked _LIGHTS_. All of the lights were still in boxes, never used. 

 

“My mom always did the lights,” Bo said. “Kind of a thankless job, I guess. She put the lights on and then called us in to do the actual ornaments.”

 

“So I’m filling in for your mom here, then,” Brock said. “Actually, that seems about right.” 

 

Brock began to string the lights on the tree while Bo watched from the couch, chiding him. 

 

“You got a huge dark spot up top there, and then a big clump of them all together on the other side! What are you doing, man?”

 

“My best! I’m doing my best!” Brock exclaimed. He could see Bo snapping pictures with his phone, too. He looked forward to whatever their teammates would have to say about this. 

 

He finished the lights, then stood back again, next to Bo, to look at it. 

 

“Good work,” Bo said. He sounded earnest. Brock just smirked, and shook his head for the hundredth time. 

 

“All right. You can do ornaments, right? You’re not too gibbled for that?” 

 

“I can do ornaments,” Bo said, hoisting himself off the sofa. Brock could feel his phone buzzing in his pocket, which meant Stech or Hutty had seen the pictures of him stringing up the tree, but he wasn’t much interested in getting into it with either of those guys. He took his phone out of his pocket and tossed it onto Bo’s couch. 

 

Bo had a nice collection of ornaments, which Brock correctly guessed had been purchased or gifted by his parents. He tried to imagine Bo shopping for ornaments and couldn’t.

 

“I’m disappointed that there’s nothing here that you made when you were eight years old. Didn’t you make construction paper Santa ornaments in school?”

 

“My parents still have all of those,” Bo said. “And I’m not putting those on my tree anyway, are you kidding? Could you imagine what Virts or Hutty would say if they saw that?” 

 

“Oh, you’re right, you’re right. Only the classiest ornaments for Bo’s tree. For example — ” he lifted a figurine out of the case — “What is this? Is this Goofy the dog?” 

 

“Hey, be careful with that one! That’s vintage.” 

 

Vintage or not, it was ugly. Still, Brock handled it with tenderness. 

 

Ten minutes later, they were more or less finished. 

 

“I think that’s it,” Bo said, after placing a beaver ornament on one of the only unoccupied branches of the tree. “It’s pretty loaded up.” 

 

“It sure is. I can already envision what a great time I’m gonna have taking this all down for you, too,” Brock remarked, and both of them laughed, taking a seat on Bo’s couch to inspect their work. 

 

“Thanks, by the way,” Bo said. “I know I was being a bit cheeky about it, but I really appreciate your help. I won’t be here for Christmas, but the tree makes this place feel a lot more like home.”

 

“It does,” Brock said, “and you’re welcome. As a matter of fact, it’s so nice that I think I’ll have to spend some more time here in the future.”  


“I think you should,” Bo said, and then his hand found Brock’s thigh, and he squeezed him a little. 

 

There it was, that familiar flutter, Brock’s heart in his throat. He didn’t really know where things stood, after the East Coast trip; they hadn’t talked about it. But maybe they didn’t need to. He looked at Bo, no trace of that rogueish grin on his face now, but there was something behind his eyes: a plea, maybe? A question neither of them had figured out how to ask out loud?

 

Well, he’d gambled on everything up to this point. He shuffled over on the couch so that their bodies were touching, and then assessed Bo’s face again. 

 

_Fuck, what does he want?_

 

_What do_ I _want?_

 

Brock knew. Their faces were already so close together so he just did it. He kissed him, jutting his chin into him so that Bo would knew he was sure about this. 

 

Bo accepted it readily, and Brock felt like he could barely breathe, every sensation amplified now a thousand times over: Bo and his warmth and his soap-scent, the feel of the fabric of his shirt under Brock’s fingers, the taste of Bo’s tongue. 

 

The smell of the tree, carried by the heat of the fireplace. 

 

It was all of their memories, their childhoods, their nostalgia: sure. But it was also finding something new, now, something that was only theirs. 

 

They kissed until the candles had burned themselves out. 

 

“Stay here tonight?”

 

“You don’t have to ask,” Brock said. “You don’t ever have to ask again.” 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
